IANS / NUCLEAR ASIA

Russia, India and Bangladesh signed a trilateral agreement on Thursday to cooperate in the construction of the Rooppur Nuclear Power Plant in Bangladesh, work on which started late last year, according to an announcement from Russia`s Rosatom State Atomic Energy Cooperation.

Rosatom, the equipment supplier and technical consultant for the Kudankulam Nuclear Power Plant in Tamil Nadu, said in a statement here that the MoU for cooperation was signed by Rosatom Deputy Director General Nikolay Spassky, Indian Ambassador to Russia Pankaj Saran and Bangladesh Ambassador to Russia S.M. Saiful Hoque.

“The parties will cooperate, in particular, in the field of personnel training and mentoring, exchange of experience and provision of consulting support,” Rosatom said.

“Indian companies can be involved in construction and installation works, the supply of materials and equipment of a non-critical category for the project.”

An inter-agency agreement was signed last year between the Global Centre for Nuclear Energy Partnership (GCNEP), Bangladesh Atomic Energy Commission (BAEC) and India’s Department of Atomic Energy (DAE) for cooperation on nuclear projects in Bangladesh.

As per this agreement, the DAE through GCNEP would provide training services to BAEC personnel involved in the Rooppur Nuclear Power Project.

Rosatom started work in December last year on the first nuclear power plant in Bangladesh at Rooppur which will have two VVER 1200 type reactors for a total capacity of 2,400 MW.

Talking to The Economic Times newspaper from Dhaka, Ali Zulquarnain, Former Chairman of Bangladesh Atomic Energy Commission said, “We still have a long way to go with nuclear technology. Our neighbour India is more advanced than us in this regard. Some of the Indian nuclear power plants are built by Russia and the two countries share a good working relation in this regard. Bangladesh can also enter into cooperation with the two countries and gain from their experiences.”

Russia has offered to supply to India the VVER-1200 reactors that are powered by advanced fuel for the second nuclear power project to follow Kudankulam, which envisages the construction of six reactors of the earlier generation VVER type of 1,000 MW capacity each.

The VVER-1200 has 20 per cent more capacity than the VVER-1000. The first two units at Kudankulam have been commissioned, with four other units in various stages of implementation or planning.